Ian Castles

Ian Castles is a a Visiting Fellow at the Asia School of Economics and Government, Australian National University, Canberra.

Since first airing criticisms of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emissions scenarios at a workshop convened by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (AATSE) in April 2002 he has been a prominent critic of the IPCC.

According to his biographical note "he was formerly Australian Statistician (1986-94) and Secretary, Australian Department of Finance (1979-86). After his retirement from the Australian Public Service in 1994 he was successively Executive Director and Vice President of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (1995-2000). He is a former President of the International Association of Official Statistics and was elected a Member of the International Statistical Institute in 1992."

In recent times he has appeared at events hosted by the conservative think-tanks, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and Centre for Independent Studies. "Following an invitation from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in December 2002, Mr. Castles elaborated on criticisms he had previously made of the Panel's emissions scenarios at a meeting of an IPCC Expert Group in Amsterdam in January 2003," his biographical note for a 2003 IPA seminar stated. [1] He has published papers with The Lavoisier Group, a global warming skeptic organisation.

An Australian National University profile lists his research interests and expertise as being "information requirements of public policy; economic growth and the environment; global distribution of income and output; history of economic thought." [2]

Contents

Views on Global Warming

In an interview with Australian broadcaster Michael Duffy, Castles downplayed the magnitude of climate change that has occurred to date. "Well I believe that global warming has occurred in the course of the last 30 years, and indeed over the course of the last century. The extent of warming is relatively small, it's only a fraction of one degree, but certainly it has been a change. The climate is always changing over time, and it varies of course from one area of the world to another. It's by no means a uniform increase." [3]

Asked by Duffy about what Castles and his co-authors of an article in World Economics thought about the statement in the Stern report that the scientific evidence on global warming is overwhelming, he said "Well basically I think we thought that it was exaggerated, the extent of certainty in the conclusions was much too strongly pushed in the Stern Review." [4]

Publications

"Reporting on Human Development: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics" in Facts and Fancies of Human Development, Ian Castles (ed.), Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, 2000